


You Don't Deserve to Breathe, But Here I Am Still Hearing You Speak

by Branithar



Series: Wire [4]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branithar/pseuds/Branithar
Summary: Michael takes Luke to a party and it doesn't even come close to going as planned.This can be read spoiler-free at any point after Chapter 11 of You've Cut The Wrong Damn Wire.
Series: Wire [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742266
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	You Don't Deserve to Breathe, But Here I Am Still Hearing You Speak

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Black by Hands Like Houses.

Even from inside Michael’s car, the bass echoing from the party down the street pulsed in his ears, almost loud enough for him to recognise the song, but not quite. 

“You ready to go?” he asked Luke.

Luke shook his head, fidgeting with his sleeve with shaking fingers. “I shouldn’t.” 

This conversation had been all over the place since it began. Luke wanted a last hit of ice to ease himself into sobriety, Michael said it would probably be easier on him if he didn’t have one, Luke agreed, then threw up, then begged Michael to take him to a dealer, then felt guilty about wasting Michael’s money, then had an anxiety attack about offering sex for drugs and getting hurt or _Michael_ trying to buy and getting hurt and now they were here in a more public setting with plenty of witnesses, apparently still unsure about whether they were going to go through with it or not. 

“It’s okay, man,” Michael assured him, “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Luke frowned deeply at his hands, then stared out the window, at a few late-comers walking to the party. His eyes widened. “Shit, is that Ethan?” 

Michael’s stomach dropped and he looked up the road, following Luke’s gaze. Sure enough, Ethan was walking towards them, short blond curls and old, tattered clothes still recognisable in the moonlight. Michael made to start the car, but Luke stopped him with a hand on his arm. 

“I wanna talk to him.” 

“We should just go,” Michael argued. That had been the plan. Sneak Luke out of his house, maybe get him some meth, then get the fuck out of this shithole for good. 

Luke opened his door and got out, terror clear in his eyes. Michael did the same. There was no way in hell he’d leave him to face Ethan on his own. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Ethan demanded as he approached, “You’re supposed to be at Brendan’s tonight. He keeps asking where you are.” 

“I’m leaving,” Luke told him, defiant even as he trembled.

Ethan glared at Michael. “Who the fuck are you?” 

“None of your fucking business,” Michael bit back. 

Ethan stalked forward to grab Luke’s shirt. “We’re going home.” 

Michael shoved him away. “Fuck you.” 

There was a tense pause as Ethan’s face twisted with rage and he glared at Michael and Luke. 

“I’ll fucking find you,” he finally hissed, jabbing a finger into Luke’s chest, “You think my friends hurt you? You think kids at school hurt you? You have no fucking idea what I’ll do to you if you try to leave.” He stepped back, giving Michael a deadly look. “If you aren’t home by morning, I’ll make you _beg_ me to let you die.” He turned away and started walking back to the party. 

Tears streamed from Luke’s eyes as he looked at the ground, the hopeless fear in his eyes breaking Michael’s heart.

Before he could move to comfort him, Luke crouched down to grab something off the ground and ran at Ethan. There was a loud crack as he slammed the thing in his hand against the side of Ethan’s head. A rock, Michael guessed. 

Frozen, he watched Ethan stumble and fall to his knees, Luke pushing him onto his back and getting on top of him to bring the rock down on him over and over. Each hit was bloodier than the last and Ethan struggled at first, blindly shoving at Luke and trying to yell, but his weak shouts died as his teeth broke and his mouth filled with blood. Ethan could never suffer enough for what he put Luke through, but every hit felt like retribution. 

Michael’s lips twisted into a smile. Finally, Ethan was the one who was powerless and afraid. 

Ethan’s arms fell to ground, fingers twitching as Luke kept hitting him. A sob escaped Luke’s lips and Michael was broken out of his haze, glancing around to see if anyone was watching as he crouched at Luke’s side. 

“Come on, we gotta go.”

Luke nodded, letting Michael pull him off of Ethan and take him to the car. 

Michael looked back at Ethan as Luke got in. He wouldn’t be able to reverse out with him lying there. 

Glancing around again, Michael grabbed Ethan’s ankles and dragged him towards the ditch. As he crouched down to push him in, he heard a whimper. 

“You’re lucky I don’t have more time,” he whispered, not completely certain that Ethan’s ears weren’t too clogged with blood to hear him but enjoying the catharsis of getting his feelings out anyway, “If it were up to me, you’d be the one begging to die.” He stood up and shoved Ethan with his boot, watching him roll to the bed of the ditch with a choked-off sound. Michael hoped he'd drown on his blood. 

Luke was shaking uncontrollably when Michael got into the driver’s seat, looking over his shoulder and scratching at his wrists. “What if someone saw?” 

Michael turned the key and pulled out. “I don’t think anyone did,” he said, hoping to God he was right.

“But what if someone _did?_ ” 

“Then we’ll run away,” Michael told him, “Just like we were going to anyway. We’ll get fake names and go to fucking … Alice Springs or something. They’ll never find us in the middle of the desert.” 

Luke sniffled, but seemed somewhat calmed by Michael’s words. It wasn’t a plan, Michael knew that, but for Luke he’d pretend it was, pretend he had it all together and that behind the high of what just happened he wasn’t starting to freak out about what would happen to them. 

“We’re gonna be fine,” Michael assured Luke as much as himself. 

“Ethan has money,” Luke said, “In his room. We should get it.” 

Michael glanced at him and hoped that his earlier promise that Luke would never see that house again was the only one he’d be breaking tonight. 

“Mind if I change inside?” Michael asked when they pulled up, “You should too. Get rid of the evidence.”

Luke nodded and waited as Michael got a set of fresh clothes out of the boot for each of them. “Bring a spare bag,” he suggested. 

Michael had never been inside Luke’s house before. Aside from a few beer bottles scattered around the sleeping form on the couch, it was shockingly clean. He knew that Ethan made Luke do chores in exchange for food, but he was still surprised by how much it looked like a normal, well-kept house.

“He keeps some money on a shelf in his room,” Luke whispered as they crept through the house, careful to not make enough noise to wake up Phil, “To try and trick me into stealing some. I’ll grab it after I shower. Do you wanna shower too?”

Michael shook his head. He was really only changing his clothes as a precaution, he hadn’t been standing close enough to get too bloody. 

“You can change in my room, if you want.”

He went to the door Luke indicated to and flicked open the latch. It had been haphazardly secured to the door frame with nails instead of screws, most likely by Ethan himself. The padlock, tarnished and dirty from years of use, still hung from the part nailed to the door, open and waiting for someone to lock Luke in his room, though now nobody would ever again. 

Hearing the shower turn on, Michael stepped inside. Luke’s room was tidy, probably in part because Luke didn’t have a lot of possessions aside from his clothes. The walls were bare of posters and no childhood paraphernalia cluttered the shelves. Michael wondered if Ethan made him keep it spotless for his "guests" or if Luke just cleaned to pass the time, the countless hours over years of imprisonment in here. Well, spotless aside from the old bloodstains on the bed sheets. Michael tried not to think too hard about them when he put the bag he'd brought on the bed.

When Michael had changed, he went to the window and touched the nails that held the tattered wooden blinds to the frame, wondering how many years it had been since they were hammered in, whether an escape attempt had led to their presence. Michael’s gut twisted at the thought of what the punishment for that would have been. 

At the sound of a cough, he spun around to see Phil at the doorway, blinking at him blearily.

“You one of Luke’s?” he asked gruffly. 

Michael relaxed. “Yeah,” he lied. 

“Ethan around?”

“No, I uh…I payed him earlier and he said to just go ahead when I got here.” 

Phil nodded, glancing back towards the bathroom. “You wanna beer while you wait?”

“I’m good.”

“I’ll leave you guys to it, then.” He gave the bag and clothes Michael had left on the bed a long look but didn’t comment on them before leaving. 

Bastard. Luke said Phil had never laid a hand on him, but he’d never done anything to stop Ethan either. Although Luke might not feel inclined to blame him, reasoning that he was as afraid of his piece-of-shit son as he was, as far as Michael was concerned, Phil was just as guilty as every other sick fuck who’d had anything to do with this. 

When Luke came back, clean of any trace of Ethan’s blood, he dumped the armfuls of stuff he’d brought with him on the bed. Cash and drugs, it looked like. “Found his stash,” he explained.

“Phil came in,” Michael told him, “I said I was a customer.” 

Luke nodded as he held up a baggy. “I just checked and he’s asleep on the couch again. We should be good.” 

Michael sorted through the money as Luke examined the drugs, counting out hundreds of dollars within a minute and trying not wonder how much Ethan had made from dealing versus selling his own half-brother.

“I dunno how to sell all that,” Michael said, eyeing the acid Luke was looking at, “We probably don’t need to anyway, there’s plenty of cash.”

Luke hesitated, a guilty look creeping into his demeanour. 

“Luke…” 

“We could just keep a bit,” he pleaded. 

“No way. You wanted to get clean.” 

Luke opened his mouth to protest, but was distracted by something outside. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered.

Michael went to the window and peered through a tiny gap in the blinds. “ _Cops._ ” 

Was it a good sign that there were no lights or sirens, or did they just want to sneak up, give them no opportunity to run? 

When he looked back, Luke was staring down at the hoard in front of him. As heavy footsteps trudged up to the front door, he jumped off the bed and wrenched the bottom drawer out from his wardrobe, reaching in to pull up the carpet there. 

“Here,” he hissed at Michael, looking terrified when a loud knock echoed from the front door. 

Michael scooped up the assorted substances and helped Luke stuff them into the hiding place, cold washing over him as he heard Phil answer the door. 

“Cash?” he asked Luke.

“It won’t fit,” Luke told him, replacing the piece of carpet and lifting the drawer back in. 

Michael pulled the blanket up and started stuffing the cash there. It was the most obvious hiding place in the world, but at least nothing would immediately look amiss if someone walked in. 

As they neatened the bed, footsteps approached and there was a soft knock on Luke’s door.

“Uh…you guys are gonna have to wrap it up, there’s someone at the door for Luke,” Phil told them, “And you can…leave through the back door if you like. Maybe wait a couple of minutes.” 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Luke called back. 

The footsteps retreated. 

“What do I do?” Luke whimpered. 

Michael racked his brain. Even if they ran out the back door, they couldn’t get his car with the cops standing out front. 

“Maybe they’re here about something else,” he reasoned, “Just act calm. Don’t tell them anything. Let Phil do the talking.” He’d covered up for _Ethan_ plenty of times before. 

“What if they know?” Tears were spilling from Luke’s eyes. 

Michael dried them with his sleeves. “Pretend I did it.”

“ _No_ ”

“Luke.” Michael held his face. “You can’t go to prison.” 

“Neither can you.”

“I can take care of myself,” he promised, “They won’t even catch me anyway. I’ll leave as soon as they’re gone.” 

“No, I need you.” 

Michael pulled him into a hug. “It’s gonna be fine.” 

“Luke?” Phil called. 

“Call me when you get home, then, yeah?” Michael instructed, “I’ll get ready to leave and we can go as soon as you’re out. Together.” 

Luke took a shaky breath and nodded. “Don’t leave me here.”

“I won’t.” 

Michael watched from the window as the cops led Phil and Luke to their car, taking it as a good sign that they weren’t in handcuffs. Once they were gone, he collected up all the cash again and stuffed most of it into the bag, leaving a little under the sheets in case he got caught and Luke needed it. 

Next he grabbed his clothes and the pile Luke had left in the bathroom, stuffing them into a bin bag from the kitchen. He’d burn them in the old fire pit at Nan’s, though he had to wonder what the point was. Even without witnesses, they’ve probably left more than enough evidence to condemn themselves at the scene. 

As Michael stood in his backyard and watched the green flames flicker, the sky lighting with the approach of dawn, he got a text from Luke asking him to go to their usual meet-up spot. Michael told him to make sure his bed was made, hoping he’d pick up on the suggestion. It didn’t really matter if he did, they already had thousands in the pack they’d filled, but a bit extra couldn’t hurt. 

“You okay?” Michael asked when he picked Luke up.

He nodded, handing him the stack of cash from the bed. “Didn’t want Phil to see you in case he thought it was weird. He chugged a beer and passed out on the couch pretty much as soon as we got home, but…” He wiped at his nose. “You know, he asked me if you hurt me? ‘Cause he saw that I was crying when I came to the door.” 

“What did you say?”

Luke shrugged. "Asked him why he cared." 

It was probably best to let Phil believe whatever he wanted, especially if it prompted him to be sympathetic enough to have Luke’s back for once in his life. 

“Did the cops notice?” 

“Fraser’s a customer. He’s used to it.” 

“Oh.”

“Can we go to the beach?” 

“Sure.” 

They drove in silence.

“So are we on the run?” Michael asked when they reached the car park, only half joking. 

Luke shook his head. “They just wanted me and Phil to identify his body. Phil asked who did it and they said it was probably a territory dispute or something.”

“Seriously?” Michael laughed as he pulled into one of the many free spaces. Nobody was out here this early. “Thank fuck.” His smile fell when he realised Luke still looked worried. “You okay?”

“I killed him,” he whispered. 

“Hey, he deserved it,” Michael gently reassured him. 

“I _liked_ it.”

“Killing him?”

Luke nodded. 

Michael looked at his hands. “I kinda liked it too. It was right, obviously, but it was…really good, too, you know? Like, _really_ good.” 

Luke looked at him. “I think we’re fucked up.” 

Michael grinned. “Yeah, maybe. We're alright, though.”

"Yeah." Luke smiled tentatively. "We're alright."

**Author's Note:**

> I run tran5rightsos on Tumblr! Feel free to send asks about this or any of my other 5sos fics!
> 
> Comments are always welcome.


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